World Expo 2025 Osaka: Artistic Contribution

Federal Minister of Labor and Economy, Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, Vice President of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, Philipp Gady, and the Honorary Government Commissioner for EXPO 2025 Osaka, former Federal Minister Ursula Plassnik, at the press conference revealing the Austrian artistic contribution to the pavilion.

From April 13 to October 13, 2025, the World EXPO will take place in Osaka, Japan representing the theme of “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”. The site is located on the man-made Yumeshima Island, 10 kilometers from Osaka city center.

About

The Osaka-zu Byobu (豊臣期大坂図屏風, “Osaka folding screen”), a folding screen painting from the mid-17th century depicting Osaka in the Toyotomi era, is a rare and extraordinary work of art that has traveled through time and across borders. Created in Japan, it is the only known example from this period to have found its way to Europe, where it is now on display at Eggenberg Palace in Austria.

After falling into oblivion, the screen was restored and rediscovered in Vienna between 2000 and 2004, sparking renewed interest in its role as a cultural artwork and its potential to reveal the complex history of exchange between East and West.

As part of an ongoing research project, artists from Tokyo University of the Arts (Japan) and the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Austria) are approaching Osaka-zu Byobu not as a relic to be restored, but as a springboard for creative and artistic explorations, merging past and present in dialog.

At Expo Osaka-Kansai 2025, visitors to the Austria Pavilion can experience this conversation via the augmented reality (AR) platform Artivive.

Every month, new artistic contributions and research results from both universities will be presented, offering new ways of interacting with the screen. This AR interaction is just one element of a larger initiative that also includes a traveling exhibition and extensive documentation that will extend the reach of the project to Austria and Japan.

Through these different media and perspectives, this ongoing project invites visitors to consider how art and meaning evolve when they cross temporal, spatial and cultural boundaries, encouraging a conversation that goes beyond the fold.

Details & Artists

A city is more than its buildings, streets, or waterways—it is a living tapestry of power, memory, and exchange, constantly reshaped by time. The 17th-century Osaka-zu Byōbu (豊臣期大坂図屏風, "Osaka Folding Screens") embodies this fluidity: once a shield against the wind (byō 屏 = protect, fū/bu 風 = wind), it now unfolds as a silent witness to authority, commerce, and the rhythms of everyday life, its layered panels preserving the echoes of a city in motion.

Sayoko Suwabe examines the fortifications of Osaka Castle, where stone fortifies, divides, and endures. Built and rebuilt across shifting regimes, its walls were more than mere defenses. They were symbols of dominance, carefully designed to impose authority. Through their structure and composition, she traces how political shifts were embedded within the city’s very foundations.

Diana Morzy traces the Yodogawa River as both a physical and spiritual force, shaping Osaka’s rhythms across time. Drawing inspiration from the Toyotomi family crest (豊臣紋) and the river’s braided course, she explores river’s role in the city’s rhythms and fortunes. Her work envisions the river not only as a trade artery but as a symbol of interconnectedness: binding nature, history, and the human spirit. Through a circular, intricately woven form, she reflects on the cyclical nature of existence, where past and present merge in a continuous flow of transformation.

Rintaro Kato fuses present-day photographs into a collaged panorama, revealing the interplay between ancient Osaka and the city’s modern reinventions.

Mizuki Jones is portraying a woman in kimono during a normal daily life in the modern age.

Shu Yan´s artistic research has centered on the issue of identity. Through his participation in this project, Shu Yan became particularly interested in the  Osaka-zu byobu. This artwork depicts figures from various social strata and even presents the recurrence of certain roles across different points in time. However, in the final composition created by the artist, most of the faces appear uniform or are rendered in a simplified manner, making it difficult to distinguish figures of significant status through their faces. Therefore, Shu Yan aims to utilize the portraits depicted in the screen to construct a unique identification system and assign “identity documents” to selected individuals.

Makiko Kawakami brings the city of Ueno into focus, using an accordion-fold book (orihon, 折本) to create a dynamic interplay between isolated views and expansive urban landscapes. Her work encourages a fluid engagement, allowing for shifts in perspective, one can concentrate on minute details or unfold a broader narrative. The streets of Ueno are transferred to Osaka, creating a layered dialogue between two urban spaces.

Andrea Hu explores the visual language of mon (紋) and kirimon (切紋), traditional Japanese family crests, and their connection to hanko (判子) and inkan (印鑑), seals historically used as markers of identity, status, and authorship. These symbols, deeply embedded in cultural and artistic traditions, carry histories of power and personal inscription. Through printmaking techniques, Andrea examines how their forms and meanings can be reinterpreted and integrated into contemporary artistic practice.

Meanwhile, Nina Wandruszka examines the shifting wind of Osaka as both a literal force and a metaphor for change. Employing ChatGPT to speculate on how the wind might have differed in the 17th Century, she transforms the screen into a potential map, musical score, and intangible testimony to the city’s past air. Through sound, she reimagines the byobu’s visual language, inviting us to question how we interpret historical artifacts beyond what they depict.

After studying the significance of the Cha-do (“the way of the tea”) at the Osaka court, the corresponding Wabi-philosophy and lifestyle of simplicity, which was cognized by Zen no Rikyu, the personal tea and Zen master of Toyotomi Hideoshi, Galina Emelina decided to create a simple, yet contemplative kind of room lighting in the form of a shadow lantern.

Lena Fürjesi examines the interactions of shapes and colors in the digital art context and their influence on visual perception and the aesthetic experience of the viewer. The result is a transformed Osaka canvas that allows for different perspectives and interpretations. In summary, it can be said that this project not only opens up new aesthetic perspectives, but also contributes to digital art education.

Teresa Trimmel & Nick Gröller discovered the immediate vicinity of the “Ôsaka zu byobu” cabinet, a cabinet with countless porcelain objects. The production of porcelain was a well-kept secret for a long time, which made porcelain objects all the more desirable for the European ruling houses. The porcelain and the “Ôsaka zu byobu” not only tried to depict the foreign, but also to possess it. In our project, we deal with precisely these questions by projecting an image of supposed truth, but imposing a certain perspective on it. This creates a multi-perspective projection in which different images of perception overlap. This interplay of different views discusses the seemingly “most authentic” view in our porcelain light.

Stefanie Koschitz’s starting point of her work are the trees on the Byôbu screen. This large-scale depiction of Ôsaka Castle mainly features deciduous trees and pines. Cherry trees are shown in full bloom, so light colors from white to pink are depicted. Ehmcke and Kaiser (2010) highlight the pines on the screen as a religious symbol (tree of the gods). In addition, this evergreen tree is a sign of generational longevity. Her area of research is the sociocultural significance of trees in meaningful places within communities. She is interested in the historical and cultural significance of trees in rituals, traditional narratives and stories. These trees are meeting places and places where people linger. What do these communal third places look like in the information age of the 21st century? Could the development of third spaces be a remedy for the epidemic of loneliness? My goal is to build on the significance of trees in the Byobu Paravant and, through an artistic research process, create a work of art and a space for exchange, reflection and simply being.

Presented via @Artitive, this exhibition is part of an ongoing research project with Tokyo Art University and the University of Applied Arts Vienna, running throughout Expo Osaka-Kansai 2025.

Contact/Projectlead:

Univ.-Prof. Michael Schneider (Tokyo University of the Arts)

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ruth Mateus-Berr (University of applied Arts Vienna)